Towards Model Driven Architecture in Health Care Information System Development

Failed software projects are often the result of an unsystematic transfer of business requirements to the implementation. This deficit led to the specification of the Model Driven Architecture (MDA). It claims a consistent use of conceptual models for the software development process from requirement analysis to technical specification of software. The MDA reduces the gap between the business level and the information technology (IT) level by defining a methodological framework to link these levels (Business-IT alignment). We will present the use of an MDA in health care domain. For this purpose, we show how the paradigm of MDA can be configured to implement medical application software based on a telemedical IT platform (telehealth platform). Additionally to the conceptual structure of the developed approach and the domain-specific alignment, lessons learned from the experiences gathered during design process will be formulated as assistance for similar projects and substantiated with an exemplary application

Design and Architecture of an Ontology-driven Dialogue System for HPV Vaccine Counseling

Speech and conversational technologies are increasingly being used by consumers, with the inevitability that one day they will be integrated in health care. Where this technology could be of service is in patient-provider communication, specifically for communicating the risks and benefits of vaccines. Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, in particular, is a vaccine that inoculates individuals from certain HPV viruses responsible for adulthood cancers - cervical, head and neck cancers, etc. My research focuses on the architecture and development of speech-enabled conversational agent that relies on series of consumer-centric health ontologies and the technology that utilizes these ontologies. Ontologies are computable artifacts that encode and structure domain knowledge that can be utilized by machines to provide high level capabilities, such as reasoning and sharing information. I will focus the agent’s impact on the HPV vaccine domain to observe if users would respond favorably towards conversational agents and the possible impact of the agent on their beliefs of the HPV vaccine. The approach of this study involves a multi-tier structure. The first tier is the domain knowledge base, the second is the application interaction design tier, and the third is the feasibility assessment of the participants. The research in this study proposes the following questions: Can ontologies support the system architecture for a spoken conversational agent for HPV vaccine counseling? How would prospective users’ perception towards an agent and towards the HPV vaccine be impacted after using conversational agent for HPV vaccine education? The outcome of this study is a comprehensive assessment of a system architecture of a conversational agent for patient-centric HPV vaccine counseling. Each layer of the agent architecture is regulated through domain and application ontologies, and supported by the various ontology-driven software components that I developed to compose the agent architecture. Also discussed in this work, I present preliminary evidence of high usability of the agent and improvement of the users’ health beliefs toward the HPV vaccine. All in all, I introduce a comprehensive and feasible model for the design and development of an open-sourced, ontology-driven conversational agent for any health consumer domain, and corroborate the viability of a conversational agent as a health intervention tool

Modelling mobile health systems: an application of augmented MDA for the extended healthcare enterprise

Mobile health systems can extend the enterprise computing system of the healthcare provider by bringing services to the patient any time and anywhere. We propose a model-driven design and development methodology for the development of the m-health components in such extended enterprise computing systems. The methodology applies a model-driven design and development approach augmented with formal validation and verification to address quality and correctness and to support model transformation. Recent work on modelling applications from the healthcare domain is reported. One objective of this work is to explore and elaborate the proposed methodology. At the University of Twente we are developing m-health systems based on Body Area Networks (BANs). One specialization of the generic BAN is the health BAN, which incorporates a set of devices and associated software components to provide some set of health-related services. A patient will have a personalized instance of the health BAN customized to their current set of needs. A health professional interacts with their\ud patients¿ BANs via a BAN Professional System. The set of deployed BANs are supported by a server. We refer to this distributed system as the BAN System. The BAN system extends the enterprise computing system of the healthcare provider. Development of such systems requires a sound software engineering approach and this is what we explore with the new methodology. The methodology is illustrated with reference to recent modelling activities targeted at real implementations. In the context of the Awareness project BAN implementations will be trialled in a number of clinical settings including epilepsy management and management of chronic pain

Development Partner Group-Health Retreat

Following the publication of the draft Tanzanian Joint Assistance Strategy (JAS) in July 2005 which outlined a medium-term framework for enhancing aid effectiveness through the rationalisation and alignment of development partner approaches, a series of consultations on this draft strategy took place both within government agencies and among Development Partners. The Development Partner Group in Health (DPG-H) took this opportunity to hold a two-day workshop in late September with the first day devoted to discussing the implications of the JAS for Development Partners, Ministry of Health and President's Office Regional Administration and Local Government. The second day was used as a time to internally reflect on the present functioning of the DPG-H Group, identifying ways of enhancing the work of the group in response to the changing environment. Discussions on the first day of the Retreat were structured around the five key elements of the JAS, i.e., Sector Dialogue, Aid Modalities, TA and Capacity Building, Division of Labour and Monitoring & Evaluation. Presentations were made by Development Partners with input/comments and clarification given by the Ministry of Health, President's Office Regional Administration and Local Government; and Ministry of Finance. Group work was undertaken in the afternoon to further address pertinent issues that were raised from the plenary discussions in the morning session. This resulted in a number of recommendations that included the following: supporting an effective division of labour; harmonising support with government plans and priorities irrespective of the funding modality; complementarity and coordination enhanced between the various aid modalities; basket funding to continue as a transition towards General Budget Support (GBS); demand driven technical assistance; and over time developing an agreed competency/profile skills mix of health development partners. The second day was an opportunity for members of the DPG-H to come together and reflect on the work of the group - where it had come from, the current functioning of the group (strengths/challenges) and looking forward. A number of presentations were made that covered the background of the group; the history of the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) and the role of development partners; the sector dialogue structures, the expectations and challenges with respect to communication; strengthening the ways of working as a group and the development of an activity plan for prioritising activities. During the plenary sessions a number of recommendations were agreed that included better structuring of the DPG-H meetings; regularity of meetings (once month but more frequently when required); enhancing the coherency and linkages with the overall Development Partner Group; developing and agreeing a work plan and communication strategy; re-visiting the division of labour in terms of roles and responsibilities; putting in place a fully staffed DPG-H Secretariat and organising a troika chairing structure for the group. Moreover, a number of critical suggestions and recommendations were made for further strengthening sector dialogue that centred around revising the structure of the SWAp. As they had implications beyond the mandate of the DPG-H, it was concluded that this would require further discussions, elaboration and agreement by the Ministry of Health/PORALG.\u

An Investigation into Mobile Based Approach for Healthcare Activities, Occupational Therapy System

This research is to design and optimize the high quality of mobile apps, especially for iOS. The objective of this research is to develop a mobile system for Occupational therapy specialists to access and retrieval information. The investigation identifies the key points of using mobile-D agile methodology in mobile application development. It considers current applications within a different platform. It achieves new apps (OTS) for the health care activities